Finds
by kepulver
Summary: G1 Takes place before "Wrath"; Huffer and Pipes share a moment at a flea market.


**Author's Notes:**This fic was written for the following prompts: Happy Pipes and Jealous Pipes for the 28 memes challenge and Envy for the 7 Deadly Sins challenge. Thereby knocking three off my list!

**Continuity notes:** this fic takes place before "Wrath". Largely a gen fic, but Huffer and Pipes are more or less a couple by this point.

**Finds:**

Huffer surveyed the flea market and tried to relax. He looked enviously over Pipes who was carefully sorting through a table full of human trinkets and gewgaws, seemingly ignoring the humans who were openly gawking at the two of them.

It was strange, really. If either of them should be used to humans, it should have been him, not Pipes. After all, he'd been on Earth now for nearly an eighth of a vorn where as Pipes had only been here a few months. Not long in the grand scheme of things, to be sure, but he still had that much more time to have become accustomed to the tiny, ephemeral sacks of animated meat that this planet called life. And yet, here he stood stiff as a statue while Pipes not only talked to humans, but bargained with them as if they were real people.

_Stop that!_ Huffer chastised himself. _They are real people; just different, that's all. They're as sentient and real as you are. Just…different._

He sighed, watching as Pipes extended a finger and shook hands with the human in charge of the booth where he'd been shopping.

"Thanks," Pipes said. "Thanks so much!"

His transaction complete, Pipes walked toward Huffer carrying a sturdy brown cardboard box. He moved with slow, exaggerated care despite his obvious excitement. "I found it, Huff!" he said, reaching Huffer's side. "I can't believe I did, but I did!"

Huffer smiled in spite of himself; Pipes's enthusiasm was a pleasure to see. "What did you find?" he asked, more to be kind than curious.

"Ok, you gotta promise not to laugh," Pipes said. "'Cause it's silly, but it's really cool an' you don't usually find these in good shape, not like this one is."

"I won't laugh," Huffer said. _Probably because I won't understand what you're talking about. _

"Okay, here it is." Pipes opened the box, pulling out a smaller white box. Holding out one hand flat, he set the smaller box in his palm.

"What is it?" Huffer asked.

"It's a music box," Pipes said. "Specifically, it's a girl's jewelry/music box circa 1978, made by the Isfam toy company under license from the Disney corporation. That's their character -- Disney's, I mean -- on the lid of the box. She's Cinderella." Pipes pointed at a drawing of a human female with light brown hair wearing a ridiculously large dress and surrounded by flowers decorating the box lid. "See how nice and white the box still is? Somebody took really good care of it; usually the vinyl goes yellow an' cracks. But that's not the best part, this is."

Carefully, with a precision Huffer usually only saw when Ratchet was performing microsurgery, Pipes raised the lid of the box. Inside, a 3-D representation of the female on the box lid popped up and began to spin in place in time to a tune. The music was tinny at best, but Pipes lowered his voice as if not wanting to disturb the performance.

"The song is _A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes_. It's from the Cinderella movie," Pipes explained. "The workings were made in Germany. The dolls were made in India -- injection-molded at one of Isfam's subcontractors. Everything was then shipped to Taiwan for final assembly, then sent to the US and Europe for retail sale."

Pipes paused, watching the Cinderella figure twirl in place. "Think about it, Huff," he said. "All those humans, working together all across the planet to make this little box. Just so little human girls could have a place to put things."

Huffer considered it. Taken like that, it did give a little dignity to the gaudy-looking object. "It's interesting, Pipes," he said. "It is a little silly, like you said, but it's interesting."

"They didn't all agree with each other -- their countries, I mean," Pipes said. "An they didn't all speak the same language, but they still did this." Pipes continued to stare at the box and Huffer saw a shadow flicker across the younger mech's optics.

"Are you okay?" Huffer asked, lowering his voice to a level where humans wouldn't hear him.

"Yeah," Pipes said, doing the same. "I just -- I'm happy I found it and I can't wait to get it home, even though I know I'm gonna have to hide it from Tailgate so he doesn't liberate it, but it kinda makes me hate them too."

"Hate who?" Huffer asked.

"The humans," Pipes said. "I mean, not really hate them but it just doesn't seem fair that they can make stuff like this, stuff that's useless and not even think about it."

"Not all of them can, Pipes," Huffer said. "There are plenty of places on Earth where humans are fighting to survive just like you did on Cybertron." _And am I glad you're the only one here to hear me say that. I'd never live it down._

"I know," Pipes said, closing the box lid. "But people care about that here. There are people who want it to stop and who are working to make it stop. Nobody does that back home. Even here, we're just fighting the war like always. If we were more like the humans, if we could work together on something that's not life or death maybe we could stop fighting."

Huffer didn't answer. He looked around the flea market again, staring at the booths, the knick-knacks and trinkets and just plain junk for sale and at the humans staring back at the two robots and their music box. The idea of peace through toys seemed simplistic at best and, more correctly, downright idiotic.

"You know that's not true," Huffer said, softly. "We're not like the humans; the Decepticons won't work with us like that -- ask Grapple and Hoist about how well it worked when they tried it."

Pipes nodded. "I know," he said. "But, it's a nice fantasy sometimes." He closed the lid of the music box, cutting off the song and placed it carefully back into the larger box. "Told you it was silly."

"It's okay," Huffer said. Then, feeling the need to lighten Pipes's mood. "Want to check some more booths? I think there's a couple who haven't had the chance to take your money yet."

Pipes's optics lit up. "You don't mind?" he asked. "I mean, we've been here all day, we can head back if you really want."

Huffer shook his head. "It's okay, they close at five -- that's only, what? Two hours from now? We drove over two thousand miles to come here, I think we can stick it out a couple more hours."

"You're sure?" Pipes looked eagerly at the booths and then doubtfully back at Huffer. "Really, really sure?"

"I'm positive," Huffer said, shooing Pipes toward the booths. "Go on, I'll wait over here. Good luck; maybe you can find something for me."

"Thanks Huff!" And with that, Pipes was off as fast as he could waddle between the humans.


End file.
